What Causes A Solar Eclipse And Why Are They So Rare

So solar eclipses could happen once a month.

What causes a solar eclipse and why are they so rare.

Looked at another way total solar eclipses aren t rare. The millions of people who are expected to witness the astronomical event won t show up just because solar eclipses are exceedingly beautiful they re also exceedingly rare. 21 will attract a huge audience and rightly so. A solar eclipse occurs when the moon passes completely in front of the sun casting.

The total solar eclipse that will darken the earth on aug. They are also very rare. Here s why a total solar eclipse occurs on a given spot on the planet only once every 375 years. A solar eclipse occurs when a portion of the earth is engulfed in a shadow cast by the moon which fully or partially blocks sunlight.

21 2017 is an exceedingly rare event. There are three kinds of solar eclipses. The solar eclipse that will cross the continental u s. The moon takes about one month to fully orbit the earth.

In a total solar eclipse the moon completely covers the sun. In a partial solar eclipse the sun is partly covered when the moon passes in front of it. This occurs when the sun moon and earth are aligned. But any given spot on our planet s surface gets darkened by the moon s shadow on average only once about every 400 years so in that sense totality is indeed rare cosmic coincidence.

They occur when the same eclipse changes from an annular to a total solar eclipse and or vice versa along the eclipse s path. Such alignment coincides with a new moon indicating the moon is closest to the ecliptic plane in a total eclipse the disk of the sun is fully obscured by the moon. Solar eclipses mainly look partial solar eclipses are only visible from within the area on earth where the moon s shadow falls and the closer you are to the center of the shadow s path the bigger the eclipse looks. In a solar eclipse the moon passes between earth and the sun and stops some or all of the sun s light from reaching earth.

They won t show up just because solar eclipses are extremely beautiful.